House Sitting Magazine: Issue 33 October 2020

FINDING A HOME AS THE WORLD CLOSED DOWN

by Jill Stafford I remember when I first started hearing about COVID-19 in earnest. It was mid-February and we were on a house sit in London. To this point, we had been out and about walking our "puggle" every day and going out to restaurants and museums and shops as often as possible.

But one day things seemed to change.

I heard stories of this virus but couldn’t quite understand what was happening. “It’s like the flu” some said. Hmmm…ok, nothing to be too concerned with, I guess. But then one day I heard something that made me look at people differently. We were on the tube and this poor guy was just looking so awful. He was hunkered down in the seat and looked very pale, sweaty and generally unwell. Then he unleashed this horrific wet cough. My husband Zac and I looked at each other and were extremely grateful that we weren’t sitting next to him.

But still we thought, he has the flu or something, it’s fine.